Rants & raves from a redheaded lawyer w/an unusual career: one where she can be herself online!

Monday, September 29, 2014

Why You Should Never Get Married More Than Once (Or At All If You're Smart)

Now I'm going through a divorce & have only been physically out of my marital home for going on 7 months. However, I am as certain as I can be that I'm never, ever getting married again. If you are smart, take heed of my words & don't make my mistake the first time.

Why should you never get married? Many, many reasons.

1. Being married is not as glamorous or cool as it looks. If you had high standards for yourself & managed to land a total hottie (at least in your mind), you still have to deal with the fact that this hottie is a human being. (S)he has emotions, feelings, mood swings, psychological problems, quirks, pet peeves, whatever will undoubtedly piss you off about someone. You also have emotions, feelings, mood swings, psychological problems, quirks, pet peeves, etc. They WILL piss the other person off sooner or later.

It's all pretty & nice when you're in that warm, fuzzy love phase but eventually you leave that. Then you'd better hope you're not living with a slob, pro-lifer, alcoholic, money grubbing, insecure saboteur or whatever else infuriates & annoys you to the point that a trip to the nearest mental hospital looks more appetizing than spending another minute with this person.

I can now fully understand why people feel an urge to kill their spouses. Maybe it was your own psychosis or it was their psychosis driving you over the edge.

Think about if you had to be on a desert island with this person. Let's say they have some great survival skill you don't. Could you still stand to be around him/her even if they didn't have this great survival skill?

2. Immaturity. Ladies: some men are like dogs. The wealth of immature 30 something guys just astounds me. When I have to "train" you, you've already lost the battle with me. If that guy hasn't lived on his own for a while & had to take care of himself without Mommy & Daddy, you need to run like hell. If he has a sugar mommy & isn't facing hunger or homelessness or total ruin in some fashion, you'd better take some time to ask yourself (and him) if he expects YOU to fulfill that role if he commits to you.

A man seeking a meal ticket is a man you want nothing to do with. Let him find someone else dumb enough to finance his bullshit. Or leave him to pay for hookers since maybe with enough money, they can be motivated to give a damn about his laziness. That is called being a child. If you don't mind doing it & know this isn't the sort of guy you're going to want meeting friends, family, especially children who will resent him for taking their future inheritance, go right ahead & enjoy the short term benefits.

When I have to play games or make the first move ALL THE DAMN TIME with a guy, I'm not going to be interested. Especially when other guys contact me on their own initiative & take an interest in my life. Ditch me & you are done. Disrespect me (and reading a Facebook meme yesterday, I can assert that natural redheads are the grand divas based on hair color alone) & you are not only done, you can die in a fire. Somehow, a guy disrespecting a natural redhead dying in a fire seems very poetic. Our hair is described as "fire" and some jerk getting consumed by it just sounds like wonderful symbolism.

I took a Facebook test recently asking "What Color is Your Aura?" & I got red. Fitting for these times & maybe just in general.

3. In-laws!!! Many people are fucking immature. If you've seen "Mama's Family," you have a somewhat inflated idea of the scale of immaturity some people have when it comes to their parents. Unfortunately I saw too late just how immature my ex was. Being from NC, there's the whole tradition of "showing respect to your elders" and I think it turns lots of adults into overgrown children being slaves to Mommy & Daddy's whims and lives instead of doing their own thing.

It's even worse when kids are involved & gets plain insulting since some of these grandparents are just narcissistic assholes who could care less about their grandkids.

Coming from this tradition & seeing my mother, sister and childhood best friend subjected to all kinds of lessening of position and disrespect from in-laws, I really didn't want to get married at all. I was hard core about not putting up with that. Seems you have to be marrying a man, not a boy if you want a man to stand by you on that.

I thought I was okay b/c my ex said he didn't really like his family & had taken to ignoring most of their unpleasantness but indulging them on minor things. Don't fall for that one. When he decided to take out his personal issues on me & get pissy at me for being me, he sided with the people attacking his self-interest or stifling him in a heartbeat.

It would be cold of me to tell a guy "You can't marry or be in a serious relationship with me unless your parents are dead or you disown them." I've not really heard about a family where the daughter in law was welcomed with open arms, treated with respect and truly treated as "one of the family."

I fear some guys would have their parents whacked so they could be with me. While that might be a very sweet sentiment, it's just not something I think a person should do. After all, Susan Smith tried that with her kids & look what happened to her?

Word of advice: if you aren't dealing with a grown up man/woman vs. someone whose parents are too involved in their lives, have influence over who they date, what they wear, if they take that vacation, etc. run like hell. If that person picks their parents over you all the time, you will always lose if you get married. If you have children, it will get worse.

Frankly, if you have not asserted yourself as an adult you can't get involved with me. I had to finally do this last year after my father died & I ended up in a fight with my mother over the shirt I chose to wear. No 30 something should be having that fight with their parents. If you've got your own place, make your own money & especially if you have your own kids, your parents should NOT being doing things like that. If they are, something has gone very wrong or you have a hyper religious parent.

I am done with that. Give me a man with no living parents or who's disowned his parents & never talks to them. Some women might be turned off & repulsed. If he's got good looks, ambition & maturity, it might be all I can do not to just shout "Take me!!!" right then & there.

Remember I'm the woman who said she'd rather go to prison than live with her parents again.

4. The myth of "unconditional love." I already covered this one but marriage isn't about unconditional love. If it were, I'd still be married now. There is nothing you can do that would make someone stop loving you or caring if their love for you is unconditional. As I mentioned, it doesn't exist. Don't fool yourself into thinking otherwise. Fairy tale love is NOT real life.

If you find it, I think you just have it for the moment. I'd dare you to do something you know your SO won't like. Go have an affair, indulge in your vices, whatever it is they don't like you doing. I guarantee you'll eventually find yourself without that spouse. So much for "unconditional love," right?

5. That "compromise" stuff. I'm in a really selfish phase right now. The whole "giving" thing that is part of my personality is just completely spent. Think of it being like a guy who's just come & instantly dropped into unconsciousness or exhaustion; that's where my "standing by your man" and "caring" level is at.

Such a selfish feeling person can't do another serious relationship, where you have to care a little about the other person & try to help them advance in things. At least if you don't want to just waste your time & have unhealthy relationships or go out & get a job as a prostitute. I'm sure even prostitutes have to deal with caring about the client on some level, though. Get him to come at least.

The biggest mistake you can make is living someplace you aren't happy in to please a spouse or significant other. I would be a very miserable person living in NC & my home is NYC. That is where I feel my spiritual best & am my 100%. Yes, there are flaws in NYC & no place is perfect but it's a lie to say you'll be happy living anywhere as long as your sweetie is there. A story.

My father told me once when I was visiting NC one summer from college "Now you see why I drink," after I told him about my misery at being in NC instead of in Atlanta (which I loved as a city but not as "the South"). He continued to be miserable in NC, got falsely arrested after my sister's first husband died and eventually died suddenly at work last year.

Want that to be you? If you don't, you'd best be looking at your own happiness & needs because no one is going to really care about them like you. A spouse is "supposed" to do that stuff but a spouse is supposed to do a LOT of things like be a damn adult & put that family before the one they were born into. Countless don't.

6. Finding the right person is impossible. You might as well pursue a staring role on Broadway or try becoming President of the United States. I think a person would have a far better chance at succeeding at that stuff than having a marriage that doesn't just end with divorce (unless your spouse dies).

7. Ceding your independence. You have to do that in order to get married. Shared accounts, shared social media, shared cars, electronics, never getting to decorate as YOU want to. Once you lose your independence, it is a big pain to regain it. You feel like you've regressed to being a teenager (and you stay with your parents, you'll definitely feel that way).

I'm just not up to giving it up again once I regain it. After the ordeal of divorce, you wouldn't want to either. To want to do that would make you insane or far more giving than I ever was, even at my most charitable. I can be charitable to cats; I can't do that with people. Maybe that's because cats are cuter & don't pretend to like you or care when they really don't.

Now I say don't do it at all if you can help it but I know some people have to experience things for themselves. I was under the whole haze of love at one time myself. The guy I married made me feel things no one else ever had. I thought it was the real thing but clearly there is nothing. The best I can hope for is satisfying sex from a bunch of guys & the whole "everyday is a new adventure" idea. I find that freeing & wonderful. Also helps when people think you're in your 20s. Some days, looking younger than you are & prettier than most women are pluses.

If you have that, don't tie yourself down to one person who will end up not appreciating you or just taking you for granted.

I'm childfree so I have no kids to worry about having or messing up if I don't get married. I think I've made my point.

About Me

I am an attorney who used to work with a small indie film production company. Like it or not, it seems I now have a place in the entertainment industry.
DISCLAIMER: The statements on this blog represent my personal views ONLY. It is not to be taken as any representation of the views of ANY other entity besides me, myself & I. I am not a spokesperson for ANYONE other than myself.
This blog is also NOT LEGAL ADVICE nor does any statement here form an attorney-client relationship or convey more than general information. If you want to be MY client, you'll have to sign a retainer agreement & pay me first.